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Old 03-01-2013, 09:47 PM
 
Location: Friendship
59 posts, read 110,244 times
Reputation: 81

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Goodwill is pure evil! They draw people in with the promise of groovy disco shirts and high-waisted pants, then crush your dreams of vintage-clothing nirvana with too-small sizes and suspicious stains. I, for one, am tired of being preyed upon by Goodwill and such similar thrift stores! One prior poster stated that the presence of these places is sure sign that a place is on the decline. Sorry Bellevue -- you're next. That gigantic Red White & Blue store on Ohio River Blvd is the beginning of the end...plus...it's always so picked over. At least there's a Burger King across the street to sate your craving for horsemeat.
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Old 03-02-2013, 12:29 AM
 
Location: Kittanning
4,692 posts, read 8,988,628 times
Reputation: 3668
Quote:
Originally Posted by dissident View Post
Goodwill is pure evil! They draw people in with the promise of groovy disco shirts and high-waisted pants, then crush your dreams of vintage-clothing nirvana with too-small sizes and suspicious stains. I, for one, am tired of being preyed upon by Goodwill and such similar thrift stores! One prior poster stated that the presence of these places is sure sign that a place is on the decline. Sorry Bellevue -- you're next. That gigantic Red White & Blue store on Ohio River Blvd is the beginning of the end...plus...it's always so picked over. At least there's a Burger King across the street to sate your craving for horsemeat.
I guess East Liberty must be declining, too. They have a Goodwill..
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Old 03-02-2013, 08:09 AM
 
Location: Plum Borough, east suburb of Pittsburgh, PA
144 posts, read 223,180 times
Reputation: 130
Quote:
Originally Posted by alleghenyangel View Post
I guess East Liberty must be declining, too. They have a Goodwill..
Also add to that Lawrenceville on 51st Street, where I got my computer monitor, and Ross among others. I guess I should wear my bulletproof vest next time I go somewhere such as Ross Park Mall. But seriously, Goodwill, or other affordable stuff, doesn't have to equate to dangerous. If low income automatically meant bad, then someone should've given the memo to my more impoverished friends down in Florida. Moreover, Polish Hill, from what I understand, used to be low-income, but no one ever considered it the "mean streets."

Quote:
Originally Posted by madethemove View Post
plum can not let the section 8 in
I'm interested in knowing, what is your relation to Plum or the east suburbs at large - homeowner, renter, businesses owner, family member, or something else? Not trying to pry into your personal affairs, but it seems unusual that this thread (mine of all people's) would get revived like this after it seems like it had been settled. What do you know about Plum, I'd be interested in hearing. Now you're going to start me on a long reply. Just remember, other posters, it wasn't me who woke this thread back from the dead.

As for Plum increasing their section 8 rentals, I don't think the circumstances are such that it will happen on the scale that Penn Hills had it happen. For one thing, Plum is much less densely built than Penn Hills (except Holiday Park maybe) and thus a lot more car centered. Maybe it's just me, but if I was low-income, I'd want to rely on a car a little as possible (save for grocery shopping) to avoid blowing money on the car itself, fuel, maintenance, insurance, etc. While Penn Hills has the 77, P16, and P17 which themselves don't run that often, I believe the P12 Holiday Park Flyer is the only bus that actually goes into Plum. You can catch the P16 Penn Hills Flyer if you live in a certain section of Plum. However, even those bus stops are in places such that almost anyone would still need a car to get there. The only way I'd want to be dependent on my car if I was low-income is if I was "upper lower class," meaning I'm on a trajectory up and out of poverty. But that's not an option for everyone. A lot of people would probably be better off living in a well connected city neighborhood with easy access to basics such as shopping and social services.

Second, Plum doesn't have a huge amount of housing to be filled. Penn Hills once had over 70,000 people living in 19 square miles. One of my cousins graduated the high school with around 1,000 other people! That has since dropped to 200 from what I hear. You can imagine how much potential for abandoned housing that would leave, especially since Penn Hills is only above 40,000 right now. Plum, on the other hand, has less than 30,000 living in 28 square miles (half the size of the city). Someone told me (who knows if it's correct) that Plum used to be ~35,000. Even if stuff totally hit the fan for Plum, the borough would have a lot less abandoned housing to demolish.

Speaking of demolition, it's something that Penn Hills apparently needs a lot more funding to do for a lot of abandoned homes. Plum, on the other hand, would have a lot more money up front I imagine to knock down fewer houses. This is because the property values in Plum are usually higher in Penn Hills, and have almost always appreciated. Higher property value = more money in property tax for the borough to fund things such as schools (the district was very good for my brother and me) and (God forbid) razing abandoned houses. Property values are nowhere near low enough that a landlord would contemplate converting property into a Section 8 rental.

Penn Hills football was big back in the day, and a lot of kids wanted to play there, because they thought they could get an athletic scholarship for college. So a lot of them falsely claimed they lived with a relative who had a Penn Hills address and took a PAT bus to a stop near the high school. My cousin told me the only way that anything could be done about this is if a parent or student was caught in a lie. For example, if a student was sick and the school had to call the parent to pick them up, the parent might say, "I'll be there in 45 minutes." The school would ask, "Why would it take 45 minutes?" The parent would reply, "I'm coming from the North side" Then they would be discovered. I think it would be harder for Plum to experience this kind of problem, because there is no bus stop nearby for students to get to. Besides, Plum's football isn't exactly renowned, so that's one less motivation for something similar to happen. It also didn't help that there was speculation that Penn Hills and Wilkinsburg (which was already very troubled) would be merging.

All in all, I don't believe there's enough people being displaced from East Liberty to fill up Penn Hills (which I feel safe walking around in in many areas), let alone Plum.
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Old 03-02-2013, 08:39 AM
gg
 
Location: Pittsburgh
26,137 posts, read 25,783,846 times
Reputation: 17378
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryanm3685 View Post
All in all, I don't believe there's enough people being displaced from East Liberty to fill up Penn Hills (which I feel safe walking around in in many areas), let alone Plum.
This about sums it up pretty well and I would even go a step further. East Liberty keeps building low income places, so there will be people returning from Penn Hills. East Liberty will always have a certain drag on it and it will never be a grand place like it once was. If government would have stayed out of it, East Liberty would have become grand and Plum might have felt some effect, but Plum just doesn't have the transportation in place for the section 8 folks.
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Old 03-02-2013, 09:29 PM
 
1,901 posts, read 4,355,724 times
Reputation: 1018
East Liberty east of Larimer Avenue is basically Larimer... Most people from East Liberty Gardens are from Larimer (Hamilton-Larimer Auborn Towers), most people in Enright Court are from Larimer, shoot even little Omega Place is all Larimer.
In addition, the Fairfield's low-income section is basically all people from Penn Circle East & Lincoln Park. The Penn Plaza & New Pennly Park Apts are basically East Mall/Garfield Heights people. And you bet your behinds that Central & Northern East Lib still have a ton of small independent 3story apartments.
All I'm saying is where are the people moving to? Even I can't tell!!!
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Old 03-04-2013, 11:16 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh, PA (Morningside)
14,361 posts, read 16,879,345 times
Reputation: 12390
Quote:
Originally Posted by h_curtis View Post
This about sums it up pretty well and I would even go a step further. East Liberty keeps building low income places, so there will be people returning from Penn Hills. East Liberty will always have a certain drag on it and it will never be a grand place like it once was. If government would have stayed out of it, East Liberty would have become grand and Plum might have felt some effect, but Plum just doesn't have the transportation in place for the section 8 folks.
I know you have a bug about this stuff, but AFAIK, there is no low-income housing north of the Boulevard, minus some remaining slumlords who rent out individual houses - which are rapidly vanishing due to the work of ELDI. There are also no major complexes between the Boulevard and Penn Circle, although some of the apartment buildings may still be Section 8 rentals. There are no low-income rentals at all within Penn Circle proper since the towers went down.

When it comes to the actual complexes, New Pennley Place is new. Penn Plaza is going to be demolished eventually, with the old street grid of "East Friendship" restored - everyone knows this. Since it's a privately-owned complex that just has a lot of Section 8, I'll bet anything what replaces it is market-rate single-family houses and townhomes. Fairfield Apartments is newish, but better than what was there before. East Liberty Gardens is owned by ELDI, and I'm sure they'll demo it eventually. The same will happen with Enright Court and Omega Place, I'm guessing.

So basically, there are two newish mixed-income complexes in East Liberty. Both have much smaller capacity than what was there before, and are much safer than what was there before. I think East Liberty can survive having them there - Manhattan works just fine with random blocks of public housing within very high-income areas.
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Old 03-04-2013, 12:52 PM
 
Location: Penn Hills
1,326 posts, read 1,998,041 times
Reputation: 1638
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
So basically, there are two newish mixed-income complexes in East Liberty. Both have much smaller capacity than what was there before, and are much safer than what was there before. I think East Liberty can survive having them there - Manhattan works just fine with random blocks of public housing within very high-income areas.
That's how intelligent housing planning is done, such as how it used to be done in most major Canadian cities (Vancouver's lower east side being an out of control exception, by Canadian standards). Ghettos don't exist because they're not allowed to exist, at least not anywhere like the American sense. Individual low income complexes are always surrounded by middle and high income developments, and people manage without fleeing for the exurbs. Individual pockets of lower income people and the crime that follows some of them are physically separated. Though years of unchecked low income immigration where people segregate themselves by ethnicity and income limitations has undone some of this progress.
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Old 03-29-2013, 03:20 PM
 
3 posts, read 7,760 times
Reputation: 19
I've lived in Plum for 45+ years. There has never been a decline in population. Ever. It was very, very rural when I first moved out here from Penn Hills. Large sections of Plum remain rural today.

The number one reason that Plum has not changed all that much over the years is lack of public transportation.

Before there was Port Authority Trasnsit, there were private buslines in outlying areas. Penn Hills was served by a company called Deere Brothers Transportaion Company. I heard a story that at one point way back when someone wanted to start a bus compnay in Plum. The then Mayor, Anthony O'Block, absolutely refused to approve a bus service for Plum. When PAT was established there were only a few areas that became served by busses. One was the Holiday Park area, the second was the Center-Unity area, and the third was the Coxcomb Hill area (from New Kensington to Oakmont).

What with the PAT cutbacks over the years there are fewer and fewer busses available. Section 8 requires the availability of public transportation, right?
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Old 06-28-2013, 06:00 AM
 
8 posts, read 19,011 times
Reputation: 22
Anyone know the reputation of Holiday Park TownHomes?
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Old 09-21-2014, 09:09 AM
 
3 posts, read 3,684 times
Reputation: 10
Plum, now one of the best school districts in the east suburbs. Recent state ratings puts Plum School District highest in east suburbs and higher than highly regarded next door Franklin Regional and Fox Chapel. Crime wise, Plum was rated the 6th safest city in America last year. Crime rates seem to be falling here every year and new homes are being built. Most of Penn Hills crime is located past PH Shopping Center and near East Hills, and Verona areas. These areas are very, very far away (miles) from the Plum border. The sections of PH bordering Plum are pretty nice and don't have the crime you see elsewhere in the town. Closer towns that should be concerned are Oakmont and Verona. Remember that New Kensington has been a crime ridden area for 30+ years. It borders Plum but has never seeped into the boro. Plum is a large, middle class town that still offers a great education, reasonable home costs and suburb and rural area for family. I highly recommend it!
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